This can easily lead to data loss when you create a symbolic link to an important file you cannot restore. On Unix-like systems `rm` doesn't follow symlinks by default, so one doesn't expect such symlinks to be a problem, but with Gradle they are.

Please raise priority of this issue.

Meanwhile, I added this to my 'grade.build':

clean.enabled = false
task (safeclean) << {
"rm --recursive --force ${buildDir}".execute ()
}

clean.finalizedBy safeclean

I first tried by overwriting the 'clean' task, but Gradle warns about this having been deprecated.

+1 This definitely needs to be an option! With build systems like npm and bower coming into play with their "link" function for development, it took me a while to realize why gradle kept deleting my development files